I've published a new round of changes, including the long-awaited "acro," or rate-control mode. There are quite a few new features and improvements overall. Two rate-control modes, in fact

I/we will need to work on documenting everything more/better, but for now I'll just post what I have and fill in the details later. Read the tooltips in QGC by hovering over the config fields, there is a lot of documentation in there.

All changes so far are merged into one new branch of the code repo, named "feature_integration".

Taranis scripts for S-Port implementation: Will publish these soon.https://github.com/mpaperno/AQ-OTx-Lua The essential data like voltage is in standard format, works with any S-Port device/script. Custom script is needed to show things like flight mode, battery %, GPS status, etc. The physical connection between AQ and S-Port capable Rx requires a hardware adapter (same as a PX4 needs, for example).

As always, your feedback is appreciated and necessary -- good or bad. I've flown this myself in real life and many hours in the sim, but as always test carefully. If you crash while in acro mode, don't blame the code!

For PID there is a separate set of parameters -- the defaults work for me but likely need to be tuned.

Quatos requires no special tuning for rate mode.

For both controllers, rate mode can be tuned using new Tilt Rate setting (degrees per second at full sticks) and the new Tilt Rate "Smoothing Filter" -- lower filter numbers mean crisper control. The defaults are fairly conservative -- if you're a good pilot you'll probably want to make those more agressive.

Remember to adjust expos/rates on your Tx, a lot about how the controls feel will depend on your radio.

If you cut throttle completely (eg. while inverted), you will turn the motors off and will not have any control. When doing flips it is best to keep the throttle above "off" position. One way to ensure this is to set up your radio to change the minimum throttle setting while in acro mode.

The new, optional, auto-throttle-cut feature makes it less necessary to move throttle stick all the way down when inverted.

Rate mode does work simultaneously with with altitude hold, though obviously it can't "hold altitude" when inverted or at 90* tilt. If you set an aggressive climb rate and maximum ascent speed in AQ settings, it is possible to do flips while in altitude-hold mode -- AQ will cut power while inverted and then try to quickly recover when right-side-up again.

EDIT: DOES NOT RUN RELIABLE ON RPI3! NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT'S GOING ON!Looks like I've screwed up one of the uSD cards while testing VLC with hardware acceleration. All fine after a fresh startover Will prepare an uSD card image of my current card and put into Dropbox.

I've attached a compiled version for Raspberry Pi3 in case anybody of you want's to test it. Will add a link to my dropbox folder later.